RICHMOND â Town voters easily approved the second and final step to finance a new town hall, community center and library off State Road (Route 41). The project, costing up to $6.8 million, is on town-owned land adjoining the Richmond Consolidated School.
The âyesâ vote on a debt-exclusion ballot question at Saturdayâs annual town election was a landslide 260 to 22, said Town Accountant/Town Clerk Angela Garrity. The turnout was nearly 23 percent of Richmondâs 1,245 registered voters.
As was the case in most years, there were no contested races for town positions. Last year, with all candidates unopposed, only 51 registered voters turned out, about 4 percent.
The board on Thursday decided to invite five candidates for interviews out of the 10 who had applied for the position. We will be in touch with the applicants and hopefully have them come in for next Wednesday night s meeting, said Chairman Ronald Boucher. The board is seeking to the fill post after the resignation last month of Ericka M. Oleson, who had accepted a full-time position with the town of Stockbridge. Officials are hoping to get someone in place as soon as possible. This would be the second member of its financial team it s had to replace in short order: new Town Accountant Angela Garrity has just started.
The Select Board on Friday accepted with regret the resignation of Ericka M. Oleson, who has accepted a full-time position with the town of Stockbridge. She had been with the town four years. The board s second motion at the emergency meeting was to authorize Town Administrator Rebecca Stone to immediately advertise the position. Within the past year, the town will have seen nearly a complete changeover in its administrative structure. Oleson s departure follows that of Town Accountant Donna Estes, who came on the same year and is retiring. Her job last week was offered to Angela Garrity, who is town clerk and accountant in Richmond.
The new numbers from the state Department of Revenue were received just hours before Tuesday afternoon s tax classification hearing. Assessor Ross Vivori said the numbers should translate to about a $2 drop on the tax rate. A lot of information for whatever reason seems to be coming out late state budget numbers, state aid numbers, so forth and so on, he told the Select Board. And so just literally earlier today, we got some revised numbers which change the amount that we re levying to. The increased state aid reduces the amount the town must levy to cover its expenses by $147,809 from $2,237,759 to $2,089,950.
There is significant deterioration in the concrete wall along the south side of the Cross Road across from Hall s Ground. Town Administrator Rebecca Stone on Wednesday said Highway Foreman Kyle Hurlbut had planned to be at the meeting but the roads required his attention because of the snow that night. What he s looking is for a motion to contract with Foresight Services. They do a lot of our engineering for us, they re out of Pittsfield, she said. We could bring it out to bid but Foresight has been our go-to and they ve been very, very good to the town over the last few years, said Chairman Ronald Boucher. We really don t have to go out to bid for engineering studies.